It has become increasingly uncommon to see players beyond the age of 40 playing football at the top level. The sport is, more than ever, a young man’s game. The brightest talents, the most revered, expensive and in-demand players, are often little more than teenagers. Experience, though, is a valuable, and perhaps slightly underappreciated, trait. As Alan Hansen famously said: ‘You can’t win anything with kids’. He was proved wrong by Manchester United in that particular instance, but still, the point stands. Players in their 40s may have lost the athleticism and the energy of their youth. But they offer something intangible: the assurance of everyone else in their team that there...
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